The emergency services

The emergency services have the highly trained staff and specialist resources to deal with a wide range of emergencies. In dangerous circumstances, they are usually the only people who should be dealing with an incident.

Following an emergency, their first concerns will be threats to life, health and public safety, and with criminal activity. There may also be vulnerable people who need assistance from the local authority.

Because the emergency services have to prioritise their work in this way, they may be unable to help with threats to your business for some time. And many problems that could affect your business require the sort of skills and knowledge that only you and your staff have.

You will need to be able to respond to many business disruptions yourself, or through arrangements you have put in place. So make plans now to help you do this safely and effectively. You can find out how to get started on the Keep trading pages.

Advice from the emergency services and local authorities

Your local fire and rescue service and police are happy to provide advice on the prevention of fire and crime. You can find contact details for each Regional Resilience Partnership as well as other useful contacts across Scotland, under Ready In Your Area in the 'My Community' section of this site.

The Scottish Fire Law site describes your legal duties for the fire safety of people occupying your premises, and your duties as an employer. It also shows you how to carry out a risk assessment of your business, which will help reduce the likelihood of a fire starting, and protect people and property if it does.

Local authorities have a duty to promote business continuity and advice is usually available on their websites. They will also be able to advise you about specialist emergency plans that are prepared for some major industrial sites (COMAH sites) and other key locations that may affect you. Local authorities' contact details are available at Ready In Your Area.